Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the picturesque mountains
of West Central Montana, about 70 miles northwest of the state capital, Helena. The town of
Ovando lies just north of the Blackfoot River with nearby Ovando Peak standing in the horizon.
This is cattle ranch country and there is farming in the valley too. The town is nestled
in an area that is replete with wildlife, including deer, elk, moose and antelope. The
predators that prowl the pine and fir forests are cougars, wolves, coyotes, bobcats and
black and brown bears. As with most of Montana, the locals enjoy the scenery and a slow, small
town pace of life. Leah Lokan was a 65 year old, competitive
bike rider and was completing in the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. This route crosses
the Great Divide several times along gravel roads and trails for nearly 400 miles. It
is known for its difficulty and beauty. Her goal was to travel 35 miles per day for 11
days and complete the trail. On the day in question, she was ⅔ the way to accomplishing
her goal. Leah was accompanied by her sister, Kim Lokan and a friend, Katie Boerner.
In her prior years, Leah was a registered nurse at Chico Hospital and president of the
Chico Cycling Club in Chico, California, where she lived. She was always hugging people and
was the light of every room she entered. She was not only a road cyclist but also an avid
mountain biker. She spent years living in Idaho and Montana
and was very experienced as an outdoorswoman. She was focusing on her hobbies just after
retiring from her nursing career. On the evening of July 5th 2021, the biking
team settled into the town of Ovando and discussed their sleeping arrangements and the next day's
plans. Kim and Katie opted to stay in The Ovando Inn but Leah decided to sleep in her
tent, under the stars. Leah laid out her bedroll in her tent, near
another pair of tent campers, Joe and Kim Cole, between the sheds behind the post office.
After the evening winds down the campers make their way to their tents and curl up for a
good night's rest. At around 3 AM Leah is asleep in her tent
when she is awakened by the loud huff of a bear on her head through her tent. She yells
the alarm, “bear, bear”. The Coles also heard the bear approaching and peek out of
their tent, but the bear was gone. Leah exits her tent and moves a big bag of lentils and
a couple bags of snack food into the old jail building about 25 feet away. The Coles asked
her if she wanted to go to the motel and sleep but she declined. Then she takes her Frontiersman
Bear Spray and curls up in her sleeping bag in her tent, and goes back to sleep.
At 4:05 AM Mr. Cole is awoken by the sounds of the grizzly bear attacking Leah. She wasn’t
yelling for help but he unzipped the door on his tent while roaring and yelling “bear,
bear”. As he crawled through the entrance Mr. Cole discharged his bear spray. Mrs. Cole
followed him out of the tent while blowing her whistle to alert people and possibly frighten
the bear. The Coles could see the bear's dark outline
on the opposite side of Leah’s tent and it was bouncing up and down on its front legs
as if it were stomping on something. Mr. Cole continued to spray his bear spray while walking
toward the bear. As soon as the bear locked eyes with Joe, it turned its head and walked
away. The back part of Leah’s tent was still standing
but the Coles could see it was now about 10 feet farther away from where it was. Leah
had been pulled halfway through the opening the bear tore in the tent to get to her. She
was motionless. Mr. and Mrs. Cole then ran down to the Blackfoot
Commercial Company store, which is where the Ovando Inn is situated, to find Kim and Katie.
After frantically arriving at Leah’s campsite, the women see her tent still partly standing,
with her belongings scattered about. There was blood all over in and out of the tent
and Leah was laying on her stomach. Her legs were still in her sleeping bag. The upper
portion of her tent had been torn open. First responders quickly arrived at the scene.
Medics attempted resuscitation but Leah was lifeless. They rolled her over onto her back
with her arms across her abdomen, covered her with her sleeping bag.
The Powell County Coroner reported that Leah had severe lacerations of her head, neck,
shoulders and back. The distance between the canine teeth on the bites on Leah's body and
shirt measured 2.5 inches. They collected track and DNA evidence, as well as photos
from the scene and collected various fabrics and artifacts for analysis.
The materials found in Leah’s tent included two dried blueberry bags as well as her toiletries.
The blueberry bags still had the scent of what they contained. No food was in her tent
at the time of analysis. The safety tab from her bear spray can was also found there.
A short distance away from Leah’s tent, the saddlebags on her bike were found to contain
beef jerky, nuts and seeds, crackers, granola bars, gatorade powder, and a baked potato
wrapped in foil. They also found her journal in her tent and
read that on July 2nd she had practiced deploying her bear spray after being alarmed by bear
sign earlier in her trip. Under Leah’s tent, her nearly empty can
of bear spray was found covered in the oily base used in with capsaicin compound. The
tent smelled like bear spray which led the investigators to believe she had deployed
it during the attack. Authorities determined that the Bear attempted
to break into a trailer at 7 PM the night before the attack and entered a chicken coup
that night and killed and ate several chickens. It wandered in and out of Leah’s campsite
and was filmed on a security camera a short distance away 15 minute before the attack.
This was the first bear captured on this video camera in 2021.
This bear had no history of run-ins with people, no lip tattoos, no tags, no radio collars
or chips. Nor had it exhibited aggressive behavior toward people. It simply came to
town looking for food. The bear was reportedly a 4 to 7 year old male with a healthy weight
of 407 pounds, and no health issues. It had some bites and injuries around its neck and
right shoulder from fighting, probably during breeding season. The last grizzly bear attack
fatality in 50 years prior to Leahs, was a hunter in 2001.
This area surrounding the attack is in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem which
winds along the border of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. The grizzly bear population of
this area is said to have biologically recovered from being threatened. The Blackfoot tribe
and residents of the area are governed by special rules on how they can handle confrontations
with grizzly bears. Thank you for watching Scary Bear Attacks.
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